Mikel Rouse

Zoe Lister-Jones

Cort Garretson

Doug Kastilahn

Jonathan Dee's novel Palladio uncovers the awkwardness of two former lovers becoming coworkers at an avant-garde ad agency. In a new adaptation at Symphony Space, composer Ben Neill and media artist Bill Jones expand on the novel's theme with the premiere of their interactive movie, featuring musicians and video mixed live. Performers Mikel Rouse, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Cort Garretson are digitally transported into an environment created from the ads depicted in the story, as the worlds of music, art, and advertising combine — adding powerful fuel to the ongoing debate over the lines between commerce and culture. (LM, Flavorpill)

"People say I sold out," John Mellencamp said, explaining his decision
to license a song for a Chevrolet commercial. "No, I got sold out.
Sometime during the '90s record companies made the decision that us
guys who had been around for a long time and had sold millions of
records and were household names just weren't as interesting as girls
in stretch dresses."

Mr. Mellencamp, whose 21st album, "Freedom's Road," arrives in
stores tomorrow, had long expressed objections to the use of pop songs
in advertising. But he said a turning point for him came last year,
after he heard "Highway Companion," the latest album by his
contemporary Tom Petty. He liked it and thought the single "Saving
Grace" would be a hit, but then never heard the song on the radio or
saw it on the video channels. Fearing a similar fate for his own music,
Mr. Mellencamp said he decided to accept Chevrolet's offer to use "Our
Country," which he had been performing live for a few years and appears
on the new album, as the theme for its Silverado truck.

"The
bottom line is, I'm a songwriter, and I want people to hear my songs,"
he said. "I'm not saying it's right. I'm not suggesting it for anybody
else. This is just what I did this time to reinvent myself and stay in
business. Sometimes I get sad about it really. I still don't think that
people should sell their songs for advertising."

Mr. Mellencamp
has caught flak from some of his fans, and the Silverado spot, which
has been in heavy rotation on sports broadcasts since it was first
shown during last fall's World Series, has spawned some controversy.
The ad mixes images of the Statue of Liberty and Rosa Parks with footage from Hurricane Katrina and the Vietnam War. A columnist at Slate.com called the commercial's blend of patriotism and tragedy, in service of selling a product, "exploitative" and "wrong."

Chain-smoking
through an interview in a sprawling suite at the Carlyle Hotel (he and
his wife, the model Elaine Irwin, were upgraded because "the commode in
our first room was broken"), Mr. Mellencamp maintained that the ad's
downbeat tone was his own decision. "Part of the deal I made was: O.K.,
I'll do this, but I'm in charge. Make it look like a John Mellencamp
video. I don’t want to see 'Our Country' as rah-rah flag waving. Let's
show the flood, let’s show the war, let’s show the whole thing. The
fact that they rolled a truck out at the end made no difference to me."

Bill Ludwig, chief creative officer of Chevrolet's ad agency,
Campbell-Ewald, said in a statement that he hoped the campaign would
evoke "the bruises and scars that have shaped our nation."

One
question now is what impact a commercial that has been running for
months can have on sales of a new album. Some executives at Universal
Republic, Mr. Mellencamp's label, are concerned that the exposure
peaked too soon, and that the audience has already tired of the song.
Mr. Mellencamp admits that the situation has put radio programmers "in
a position they've never been in before," adding that he never
anticipated that the ad would be played so frequently. "They sure
pounded it," he said with a chuckle. "I had no idea."

"Our
Country" illustrates one side of "Freedom's Road," with its
swing-for-the-fences themes exemplified by titles like "The Americans."
The album's most striking songs, though, display a more intimate
depiction of the small-town life that Mr. Mellencamp, 55 and a lifelong
Indiana resident, knows so well. The acoustic "Rural Route" is an
account of a crystal meth-fueled murder in which the victim's body was
found at the edge of his parents' property.

"About halfway
through the record I didn't really know what it was supposed to be
about," Mr. Mellencamp said. "I had so many political songs akin to 'Masters of War,' that kind of stuff. But then I recorded a song called 'Ghost Towns Along the Highway,' and I said that's what this record is
about.

"That's a very personal song because it's not really
about a physical place, but about the decisions that we've made and the
path that we've chosen. Corporate America has absolutely changed
everything. Bloomington, where I live, has a beautiful square, there's
some restaurants, but everyone wants to go shopping someplace else. So
when everything becomes the Mc-Whatever, then you lose what I always
enjoyed about living where I live."

Joan Baez, who sings on a
song titled "Jim Crow," said she had long admired the subtlety of Mr.
Mellencamp's work. "When people try to write protest songs, they get so
trite and overstated," she said in a telephone interview. "This song
was completely fresh. I never heard anything like it."

One
thing Mr. Mellencamp never questioned was the sound he wanted for this
album. "What I know and what I love is garage music," he said, citing '60s bands like the Byrds, Count Five and the Youngbloods as
inspirations. "Whenever we’re messing around, that's what the guys in
the band all play." For his previous album, "Trouble No More" (2003),
he said: "I had gone so far down this folk thing, recording with
Appalachian instruments. I wanted to go back to what we know how to
do."

"Freedom's Road" was recorded over many months and many
grueling sessions, in Mr. Mellencamp's rehearsal space, literally a
garage. "At the time I was totally unaware we were making a record," he
said. "But then I thought: We're never going to be able to beat these
versions. It sounds as if they just walked in and played. And for a
sound like that, you’ve got to go through hell to get it."

Though
Mr. Mellencamp opted to avoid a more overtly politicized album, he
couldn’t resist including "Rodeo Clown," a harsh attack on President
Bush and the Iraq war, with lines about "blood on the hands of the rich
politicians" and "blood on the hands of an arrogant nation." The song
isn't listed on the packaging and appears several minutes after the
album's last track.

"When I wrote that song two years ago," Mr.
Mellencamp said, "the truth was nowhere in sight. But as the climate
changed, now that song feels right on target."